PI North America General Assembly Meeting

The 22nd PI North America General Assembly Meeting is coming up at the end of September. I have not been to all of them – I missed one. If you are a PI North America member you should start (or continue) your own attendance streak.

When I first attended back in 1994, I wanted more information about PROFIBUS and to meet the “players.” I accomplished both goals. Those are still good reasons to attend.

When I first found myself on the other side of the podium, I reported on the activities we were carrying out to benefit members. They were and are considerable. Our organizational goals now as they were then are twofold: to promote PROFIBUS and PROFINET; i.e., to educate folks about the technology and to assist device makers add PROFINET (and PROFIBUS) to their products. To extend this to threefold, after products are developed we let the market know they’re available.

My report had a lot of numbers and graphs and was frankly pretty boring… except to me. I got excited by the number of web visitors, the number of newsletter subscribers, the number of blog posts written, the number of tweets tweeted, the number of videos released, the number of one-day training classes held, the number of miles flown. Don’t avoid coming this year because of this – we don’t do that boring stuff anymore. (But I can tell you if you ask me!)

This year we have a full day of user stories. They are always the highlight of the meeting. We also will provide updates on activities in the working groups, a summary of the educational numbers, future plans, and more. Some attendees think the best part is the chance to network with colleagues from throughout the industry including the trade press. We provide plenty of time for that from the Welcome Reception to the renowned Wednesday night event, and at the pool party for those who stay over Thursday night. Further opportunities are provided at meals and breaks.